Familiar names show up on Army's closure list
Some of the service's oldest and best-known bases are slated to be shuttered or restructured.
The Pentagon base closure list issued Friday shows a shuffling of many Army warfighting centers, dramatically changing the makeup of some of the service's oldest and best-known bases.
The armor center at Fort Knox, Ky., will move to Fort Benning, Ga., home of Army infantry, to create a maneuver warfighting center. In return, Fort Knox will get a brigade combat team and other relocated offices.
The air defense center at Fort Bliss in Texas will move to Fort Sill, Okla. The Pentagon also recommended closing Fort Monroe, a historic and serene Army base in southern Virginia. The installation is home to the Army's future-minded Training and Doctrine Command, which will move to nearby Fort Eustis, said Army Vice Chief of Staff Richard Cody.
In addition, officials want to shut Fort Monmouth in northern New Jersey, which deals primarily with the service's communications and electronics development programs. A closure there would affect 5,272 employees. Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Ground, both in Maryland, and Fort Belvoir, Va., will take on some of those responsibilities.
The Pentagon wants to close the Army's century-old hospital at Walter Reed Medical Center, the world-renowned facility in Washington that has treated presidents as well as soldiers and veterans. The proposal is part of a broad reordering of the military's system for medical education, research and care, which the Pentagon says suffers from a mismatch of needs and resources.
Under the plan, the shuttering of Walter Reed would involve moving some of its staff and services to an expanded healthcare facility on the campus of the National Naval Medical Center in nearby Bethesda, Md. The new facility would retain the Walter Reed name, officials said.
A major winner in this base-closing round could be California. The state's many military installations were prime targets in previous rounds, but it walked away this year relatively unscathed. The Pentagon's list recommended closing 12 small facilities and realigning 12 others, but the state lost only slightly more than 2,000 military, civilian and contractor jobs.
The biggest hit was the San Diego Naval Medical Center, which might have to lay off 1,630 employees. Florida also won big, gaining a Joint Strike Fighter training center at Eglin Air Force Base, which will gain 2,218 jobs. Statewide, Florida could add 2,757 military-related jobs.
The announcement of the list marks the end of the Pentagon's participation in the base-closing process. The fate of these installations is now in the hands of the independent Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which historically has approved between 80 percent and 90 percent of the Defense secretary's recommendations.
The commission must submit its list to the White House by Sept. 8. In the meantime, lawmakers and lobbyists will woo commissioners to take their bases off the list. They also could attempt to halt the 2005 BRAC round by inserting provisions into the defense authorization and appropriations bills.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Meyers and other top Pentagon officials will testify before the BRAC commission Monday afternoon.